Well, that’s one way to make an impression. The Hunger Gamessurpassed the wildest industry expectations Making history, Lionsgate's The
Hunger Games opened to an astounding $155 million at the domestic
box office, the third-best debut of all time and the best for any film opening
outside of summer.
Hunger Games -- the
big-screen adaptation of Suzanne
Collins' best-selling
young-adult novel starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh
Hutcherson and Liam
Hemsworth -- also
reeled in the biggest opening for a nonsequel.
"It was the perfect storm.
Having the first film in a franchise to be so gigantic is amaing. We had a great
book and a great director in Gary Ross," said
Lionsgate president of marketing Tim Palen, whose team is
credited with a savvy campaign.
Domestic box-office revenues were up
a whopping 78 percent from a year ago, thanks to the might ofHunger Games, which changes
the fortunes of Lionsgate and gives the studio an instant tentople franchise.
Lionsgate will make three more films by splitting the final book in Collins'
trilogy into two movies.
Overseas, Hunger
Games turned in a
more muted performance for a solid bow of $59.3 million from 67 markets. The
foreign tally, which came in ahead of the international debut of the first Twilightfilm,
puts Hunger Games' worldwide
opening at $214.3 million.
Hunger Games is projected to place No. 1 in virtually every
foreign market, but it did best in English-speaking territories, particularly
Australia, wehre it debuted to $6.7 million. Hunger Games turned in $7.5 million in the U.K.
despite unseasonably warm weather, which often keeps consumers outside.
In North America, the tentpole came
in not far behind the $158.4 million earned by The
Dark Knightin its July 2008 debut. Harry
Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 holds the record for best debut with
$169.2 million in summer 2011.
Among the past films that Hunger
Games surpassed
in its opening weekend were Spider-Man 3($151.1 million
in 2007), The Twilight Saga: New Moon ($142.8 million in 2009) and The
Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 ($138.1 million last year).
Hunger Games drew an A CinemaScore overall on Friday night,
with those under age 25 giving it a glowing A+ and those over 25 an A-. Tweens
and teens turned out in force for the film, with 39 percent of the audience
younger than 18, according to CinemaScore exit polling.
Part of the movie's strength is that
it is appealing to males as well as females, unlike the femme-heavyTwilight franchise, another blockbuster
film property based on a young-adult book series. Males made up 39 percent of Hunger
Games' Friday
night audience.
"The numbers just kept growing
and growing. And based on the trajectory of the weekend, we are going to have
an unbelievable hold. We are going to play and play," Lionsgate executive
vp distribution David Spitz said. "I think that when we
initially looked at this property, we thought we were going to have Twilight numbers in terms of females,
but we didn't."
Hunger Games also played like a family film, evidenced by its
strong Friday to Saturday hold. The film fell a narrow 25 percent, while the Twilight and Harry
Potter films fall
anywhere from 44 percent to 60 percent.
According to CinemaScore, 49 percent
of those showing up to see Hunger Games were under age 25; Lionsgate's exit
polling showed that 44 percent were under 25.
Hunger Games played in 4,137 theaters at the domestic
box office, including 268 Imax theaters, which turned in a hefty $10.6 milion
for a per-screen average of $40,000, a record for a 2D nonsequel.
Elsewhere at the domestic box
office, Sony and MGM's Jonah Hill-Channing Tatum comedy 21
Jump Street stayed
strong its opening weekend despite Hunger Games. The R-rated pic
fell 41 percent to $21.3 million, putting its domestic cume at a heady $71.1
million.
Universal and Illumination's Dr.
Seuss' The Lorax came
in No. 3, grossing $13.1 million in its fourth weekend for an enviable
domestic gross of $177.3 million.
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